The Moonlight In Her Eyes
by Snake Tamer
Summary: Harry x Luna. Harry's 7th year he is still attending Hogwarts. LunaHarryGinny triangle. You know how it is. [by Siana] I DON'T THINK I'LL GET AROUND TO FINISHING THIS.
1. a silvered nymph suffering with mortals

It was midnight, and Hogwarts was saturated with dark, velvety shadows. Harry walked along the vacant corridors silently, rippling through the stagnant air, his motion creating a slight breath of wind. The startlingly white moonlight poured through the angular windows in shafts of light; feathery light eyelashes of the night sky. As Harry stepped from the bars of light into the patches of darkness, his thoughts slowly fell like sand, settling into his consciousness. He needed the solitude and the darkness to think: now, the bright, busy Hogwarts days clashed with his emotions and made him feel as though he were drowning in a turbulent sea of noise and joy.

Luna startled him when he came upon her. It was as though the sanctity of his night had been destroyed by a pale, radiant extension of the full moon, for that was what she looked like against the stark white light. Her eyes were large and circular, slightly upturned at the end and rimmed with long blonde lashes. Her face was thin and delicate; it looked so strange against her wide eyes that they fit together perfectly: her delicate cheekbones and narrow chin and thin, slightly upturned nose and full, pillowy lips seemed to exist solely for the purpose of supporting those pale blue eyes. She was slender and flowing, like a powdery white streak of water, and her long, blonde hair fell in half-hearted waves, flowing past her defined collarbone and coming to a rest just below her breasts.

Her long fingertips were pressed gently to her temples, and she was doubled over, staring out the window at the illuminated grounds and sobbing. Tears formed rapidly in the bottom of her eyes and traveled over her flushed cheeks, falling rapidly on the hard marble windowsill.

"Luna?" he asked concernedly.

She leapt back from the window and her hands quickly flew to underneath her eyes to roughly brush away the tears. Seeing no one, her breath caught in her throat. "Who's there?" she whispered hoarsely.

Both of Harry's hands fluttered to the top of his cloak near his crown and hastened to reveal his face. "It's me."

She sighed. "Oh, Harry. Nice to see you," she said distantly.

"Why were you crying?" he demanded.

Her eyes flicked up to his, and she looked at him directly. Harry found the honesty in her expression uncomfortable.

"Cormac MacLaggen asked me out on a date," she said simply, and her gaze shifted back to the moon.

"Oh?"

"It wasn't real; it was a joke to amuse him and his friends." Beneath her usual mystic tones, Harry could detect pain.

"I'm sorry, Luna." She nodded vaguely. "He's a real asshole, you could do so much better than that."

Her eyes found his again and she smiled with effort. "Loony Lovegood." She laughed, tears strangling her voice.

He shook his head passionately. "No, you're the most real person I've ever met. They can't judge you just because you're not as fake as them and because you don't conform to what they all do. I think you're an amazing person… and Cormac MacLaggen can go fuck himself."

Luna looked taken aback. "Really?" she asked, touched.

"Yeah, and you don't need their approval. You're fine the way you are."

She nodded slowly; Harry couldn't tell if this signified her agreement or just her desire to cease the conversation.

She looked so fragile and broken. Though she acted indifferent, he knew that she was floundering, struggling desperately in an environment that would never accept her. There was only so much that she could conceal beneath her detached, dreamlike behavior. He wanted to reach out to her, to rest his hand gently on hers and heal the wounds that his peers' cruelty had inflicted on her. It was just what Ron called his hero complex acting up again, but for some reason he felt just as hurt as her. The sadness hiding in the shadows of her face was so tangible that he could feel it wrap around his body in a weak imitation of her despair.

"Hey – d'you want to… erm, maybe come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?" he asked without realizing it.

She examined his face slowly. "You don't have to take me because you feel bad."

"I want to." He paused and considered this statement, then quickly added, "Not because I feel bad. Because I want to."

A grin slowly stretched across her face. "Sure. I'll see you in the entrance hall Saturday morning. We can look for Fire-Clawed Kirnogs on the way over!"

"Er, okay. I'll see you then."

Harry slipped the cloak back over his head and stood, watching her for a brief moment.

She glanced around the corridor for him then leaned back against the cold stone wall and tilted her head back, an giddy smile on her face. Her hair cascaded around her, shining bright silver against the dark gray walls and she was emanating moonlight: a silvered nymph languishing among the mysterious and spiteful mortals.

Harry smiled slowly and started back to his dormitory.


	2. a white beacon in a dusty bar

On Saturday, Harry awoke slowly to a watery golden sun shrouded softly behind great pillars of mist. It was early, and already worry was seeping through his body for the day ahead. He was beginning to regret asking Luna to go with him; it had made him feel so benevolent for about a day afterwards, but soon he realized that it was most likely about to be a very awkward and slightly uncomfortable experience only heightened by the fact that neither knew the others' motives for going.

He sighed and pulled himself out from the safety of his covers, then hobbled drowsily to his trunk. This was going to be a long day.

The sun was now high overhead, and Harry and Luna were walking along the steep dirt road to Hogsmeade. Clouds raced overhead in the strong wind, and Luna's pale hair and long skirts flew around her in slow swirls.

"Why aren't you with Ron and Hermione?" Luna asked offhandedly.

"Because I'm with you right now."

"No, that's not what I meant; I don't mean right now. I mean in school. You seem to be isolating yourself, because I don't think they're isolating you."

Harry looked at his feet and kicked a large clump of dirt. It crumpled into fine sand.

Luna was unperturbed by his silence. "Hermione wouldn't do that, and Ron… well, he's not the nicest of people, but he looks up to you a lot, doesn't he? He wouldn't just give up on you."

Harry looked at her, expressionless; he wasn't encouraging her to go on or to stop.

"I know you're upset because a lot has happened in your life, but I think this is really bad for you. You need someone you can trust."

Harry felt his temper flare up from the pit of his stomach. "And who would that be? Who could I trust? Who could I talk to that would understand what I'm going through? _You?_"

Luna nodded serenely.

"Can you just stop, Luna? I don't need this right now. A lot has just happened, and I don't think that going out and making a new friend is going to make it feel all better again."

She looked at him plainly. "I heard people talking, that you're going to leave school and try to hunt down You-Know-Who."

"Yeah."

"Well," she said, "that's a stupid idea."

"I need to do it."

"But who says you need it done by the end of the year? What's the point of leaving, when Hogwarts is the only place where you can learn how to fight him?"

"It's a lot more complicated than you think," he said evenly, his tone sharp.

"Whatever it is, I know that you can accomplish it. I just don't think leaving now is going about it the right way," she answered.

"Well, that's for me to decide," Harry replied, his voice rising in agitation.

"You can't do everything independently. It wouldn't kill you to take advice."

A silence fell between them, and they walked along until they reached the massive school gates.

"Look, can we talk about something else?" Harry finally asked.

Luna nodded, her large eyes tinged with annoyance. "It's frustrating how people always conceal themselves and what they want or, like, how they feel. Everyone's always so uncomfortable with me because I don't do that. And when I ask them questions, simple questions, or when I explain what they notice, they get so pissed." She shook her head, making her large silver earrings jingle as Harry uncomfortably acknowledged how she was addressing him as the object of her annoyance. "I guess this is the stage in everyone's life where they have to be like everyone else or they'll be ridiculed." She laughed softly. "No, I know that."

"It's privacy, Luna. People just don't like it invaded."

"No, it's what they don't want people to see. If no one had privacy, then everyone would be real and no one would think things are shameful. If I knew everything about you, but you knew everything about me, and everyone knew everything about everyone, there wouldn't be judging."

They had reached to door to Zonko's Joke Shop. It was covered in boards; the windows were black, empty pits staring at the pair.

"It's so sad, what he's done to us all," Luna said softly as she reached out and touched a sparkling broken point of one window.

Harry pointed at the door to The Three Broomsticks. "Wanna go in?"

Instead of answering, Luna started walking dreamily towards the door. Harry quickened his pace until he was next to her, this strange girl. _Is that why everyone hates her? Because she's real and that intimidates them?_ Again, he felt the urge to comfort her, to take her in his arms and give her the security she needed. It's strange how pity can make a friend out of an annoyance, or maybe it was that he was interested in knowing how she managed to still love herself. Whatever it was, he couldn't stay away from her, the detached stranger he pitied and admired, the girl who annoyed him with her knowledge of everything in his life and his ignorance of everything in hers. He was sure that she wouldn't stop haunting him until he unraveled the mystery cloaking her, so he followed her into the bar.

As they found a seat and ordered their drinks, he looked at her from across the round table. She was glowing, radiating innocence and confidence: a white beacon in a brown and gray filthy room. And as they made small talk, laughing at gossip and lessons and teachers and life, he felt warm little hands pulling at his heart, urging them closer. He wanted to understand her, to befriend her, and he was glad there was nothing more to complicate the matter, for romance was nestled far away, resting its tired wings in Ginny's eyes and tearing into his heart with painful jolts every time he saw her wrapping herself into Anthony Goldstein's arms. But he had hurt her so he could accomplish something that he wasn't yet ready to start, and he wasn't sure why, but he couldn't find the courage to approach her again. He didn't want her anger, his passion, or, more realistically, heavy awkwardness hanging between them, an invisible and silent burden. She had moved on in appearance, but he knew she still had feelings for him that were as strong as his for her.

For now, however, he would be content to sit in the orange glow of the setting sun in a grimy tavern, soaking in the tragic reality of Luna Lovegood.


End file.
